


Noose + Options

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Series: Wunderkind 0.5 [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Past Rape/Non-con, Pre-series Wunderkind, Prison, Whumptober 2020, but the mention is there, more like incorrectly assumed, non-sexual nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26749531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: Judging by the ink on these guys'  necks, they’re Los Manos Sangrientos. Competitors of La Ola, both on the streets and in here. One of them gives the guard a small nod, and Mac is shoved into the cell and the door slammed closed behind him. The men step in, feral grins on their faces, both of them at least half a head taller than Mac. He groans. There won’t be any help from that guard, that’s for sure. He’s on his own.It’s just two of them. He can take them. He’s fought worse odds.Pre-series Wunderkind, for Whumptober 2020 Day 1 (Let's Hang Out Sometime)
Series: Wunderkind 0.5 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947766
Comments: 19
Kudos: 26





	Noose + Options

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to post this (and one other Wunderkind-Universe fic for Whumptober) as part of my deleted scenes, but instead I'm going to post them as their own stand-alone stories so it's easier for people to read them without having to wade through the length of the other fics to get to here. They should both be completely understandable even if all you've read of Wunderkind is the single teaser start. If you haven't, that's here (https://archiveofourown.org/works/16166894/chapters/37774736) and the premise is basically a role-reversal where Mac instead of Riley is the one the Phoenix Foundation pulls out of a high-security prison. 
> 
> So without further ado, here's the first of what I'm calling Wunderkind 0.5 fics!

Mac’s gotten sadly used to people trying to kill him. It sort of comes with the territory here. He’s only been in California Correctional two weeks, but he’s pretty sure literally everyone here knows who he is. Word spread fast when the cartels found out the “Phoenix” was going to be doing time in the same place he helped send dozens of their people. He’s had a target on his back since he got off the prison bus. 

The one thing working in his favor is that pretty much  _ everyone _ wants to kill him. Which sounds like a weird thing to be glad about, but the truth is, if it was one cartel after him he would definitely be dead by now. But there’s at least four different ones who want him gone, all with members in this prison. Which has led to more than one incident of Mac being ‘rescued’ by someone else who wants to kill him themself. It’s kept him alive this long, but he can’t count on it to last much longer. 

There’s only two ways out of this. One is giving them what they want. The other is accepting the...offer from La Ola’s lieutenant.

Mac’s stomach flips at the thought of...that...happening again. Of having to let it happen. Not that fighting back really helped. Actually, it probably made everything worse. But still. He's not sure he can stomach passive acceptance. Or worse, fake enjoyment or desire. 

When he sees someone waiting in his cell as he’s escorted back from yard time, he shudders. That’s where Connors was last time. Just sitting on the bunk…

But this is two guys, and judging by the ink on their necks, they’re  _ Los Manos Sangrientos. _ Competitors of La Ola, both on the streets and in here. One of them gives the guard a small nod, and Mac is shoved into the cell and the door slammed closed behind him. The men step in, feral grins on their faces, both of them at least half a head taller than Mac. He groans. There won’t be any help from that guard, that’s for sure. He’s on his own. 

_ It’s just two of them. I can take them. _ He’s fought worse odds. 

He backs himself against the wall and considers his chances. He might be able to slam the guy on his left into the wall hard enough to knock him out. The one on his right will be more difficult, Mac’s either going to have to let him get closer or step out from the wall to get to him, neither of which sounds like a good time. But it’s the only option he has. 

When both of them rush him at once, there’s not much he can do. The wall that was serving as his defense is now a problem. He can’t back up to gain any leverage, he’s pinned and off balance. He struggles, but it’s too late. Caught off guard by the coordinated attack, he’s outnumbered and a blow to the stomach leaves him too winded to kick, claw, or bite any longer. 

Mac mentally prepares himself for anything from a shank in his gut to a snap of his neck. So the rough braid of torn sheet around his throat is more of a surprise than, in retrospect, it should have been. He struggles, trying to get one hand up and under it, to get it off, but against two people he doesn’t stand much of a chance. 

At first, he thinks maybe they just want to play rough. But when the rope tightens and one of the men loops it around the post of the bunk, Mac realizes they’re playing for keeps. The rope pulls tight, and his vision whites out for a second with the pain and pressure. He struggles for air that won’t come, panic flooding his mind and making him thrash and struggle, even though the logical part of his brain tells him that’s using up his oxygen faster. 

Mac has a sudden horrible realization. These guys are going to kill him in a way that not only keeps them off the radar of the prison authorities, but off the radar of the other cartels that definitely have hits on him. If it looks like he killed himself, the other cartels will back off, rather than retaliating against the one that stole their mark. 

He has to give them credit for being smart. Take him out, avoid getting taken out in retaliation. Anonymous kills are a trademark of  _ Los Manos. _ They’ve been suspected of everything from the drive-by shooting of a prominent member of a DEA taskforce to the hit-and-run that left the city DA in critical condition. But no one can ever pin the kills on them.

The rough rasp of the cloth around his throat is sickening. Of all the ways to die, asphyxiation is not one of his top contenders.

_ Okay, I know, it’s weird to think of how you’d  _ like _ to die. _ But since he became a vigilante, there’s been a running list in his head.

He’d like it to be quick. Either a fatal gunshot or a botched explosion. But the explosion...he’d hate for Bozer and his family to have to deal with that aftermath if there was a body to recover.  _ Pena was lucky, I guess. His family didn’t have to identify anything, there wasn’t anything to see. _

Poisoning and drowning both scare him. They both have the potential to be excruciating. But the idea of being slowly strangled to death is the scariest by far. He can’t shake the way James scolded him when, as a child, he was playing with the ties he found in his dad’s drawer and pulled one too tight. 

James had come the closest to actual worry Mac had ever seen him. He’d lectured the six-year-old on the dangers of asphyxiation and brain damage, and Mac has a perpetual running clock in his brain whenever he’s been choked (by schoolyard bullies, cartel sicarios, and once by the collar of his own shirt when he was careless around a vehicle hoist). 

That internal clock is now ticking down fast. Mac is running out of time. 

He has one option left. Letting his body go boneless, Mac collapses, the only thing holding him up the pressure of the rope around his neck. If he had the air to do it, he’d have screamed at the pain when it cut into his skin. 

Through a haze, Mac hears the men discussing whether he’s dead or not.  _ Come ON, go! _ His lungs are crying for air, much longer and he’ll pass out and then he will be dead. He has to stay awake. He slowly clenches his fist on the side the men can’t see, digging his nails deep into his palm, hoping the pain keeps him alert just a little longer.

“Even if he’s not, he won’t be able to get that knot off. He’ll die pretty quick if he isn’t gone already.”

Mac hears a pounding on the door, although it’s competing with the pounding in his head as his body screams for more air. It feels like forever, and like he’s listening through deep water, as a key scrapes in the lock, the door creaks open, then slams again, and footsteps disappear. 

Mac forces himself to his feet, standing on tiptoe to release the pressure on his abused throat. He fumbles under the mattress for the sharp-edged toothbrush he’s been slowly and carefully fashioning into a shiv (he doesn't want to kill anyone but he'd feel better knowing he could fight back next time someone attacks him), and frantically saws at the cloth rope. The rasp of the plastic edge against the cloth sounds like a jet engine in his ears. Mac forces himself to keep cutting, even as a reddish-black mist closes in around his vision and his muscles feel like they’ve turned to jelly. 

The shiv is too dull. He can’t cut the rope in time. Mac stumbles and falls forward again as his body gives out and the blackness takes over.

* * *

When Mac wakes up, he can’t move. His first thought is that his neck did snap and he’s now paralyzed. His second is that he can feel how cold his toes are, and that wouldn’t happen if his neck had snapped. He just...can’t move.

The answer comes when his brain processes that the weird feeling around his ankles and wrists is restraints. He’s been cuffed to a bed. The thought terrifies him, he can’t be tied down, he’s too vulnerable like this. He can’t fight back if someone comes for him. He thrashes, but the restraints are too tight. He can’t get out. 

Someone puts a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down, there, son.” Mac’s breathing only gets more frantic. Anything could happen right now and he would be absolutely powerless to stop it. He’s hyperventilating, and he knows it. It hurts. Everything hurts. 

“Let me out!” It’s more a panicked, thoughtless cry than anything else. He’s terrified, he was just almost killed, and now he’s restrained and helpless.

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that. You’re considered an active suicide risk now.”

_ The noose. They thought I... _ no one knows the truth. 

“It wasn’t…” Mac swallows hard, his throat aching. “Someone tried to kill me. From  _ Los Manos. _ ”

“No one was near your cell all day except the guards. The one on duty confirmed that.” The man’s voice is calm. 

Mac wants to say he’s lying but the words stick in his abused throat. 

The man’s voice sounds forcedly gentle, like he’s playing a part. “I understand that prisoners in your...situation often look for the easy way out.”

Mac wants to scream. If his throat didn’t hurt so much, maybe he would.  _ They’re using the worst experience of my life against me. Yes, it hurt. Yes I feel lower than dirt. But I don’t want to  _ die! 

“You’re a fortunate young man.” The doctor says, as if Mac being cuffed to a table with a massive bruise around his throat, barely able to speak, can be considered fortunate. “If your friend hadn’t come to visit no one would have come to your cell in time.”

_ Oh God, Bozer. _ Mac feels absolutely sick.  _ Did they tell him anything about this? Does he think of me as suicidal now? _

The man leans over Mac and checks something on the side of his neck. It stings. 

“It appears the bleeding has stopped. Luckily you missed any serious arteries or veins.”

“Wh...what?” Mac croaks out.

Then it hits him. The toothbrush shiv. Trying to cut himself free. Blacking out halfway through.

_ Shit. _

“It’s possible you’ll have some memory gaps,” The doctor says. “But we’re concerned that one failed attempt wasn’t enough to prevent you from trying to go through with your plan. Backup plans are going to put you on a stricter watch protocol, I’m afraid.”

“I was trying to cut myself loose!” Mac forces the words out, even though they’re raspy and hoarse and every single one hurts. He knows he wasn’t supposed to have the shiv, they’re probably going to take even more away from him now, but it’s better than being considered suicidal. “I told you, someone else tried to kill me with the noose.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard that excuse.” The doctor frowns. “I’ll be speaking to the prison psychologist to determine the best course of action for you. There will be a forty-eight hour observation period no matter what the decision.”

Mac swallows hard, leans his head back on the thin pillow on the observation table, and sighs.

* * *

When the doctor comes back, there’s another man with him, a man with sharp eyes and a clipboard he’s constantly scribbling notes on. Mac tries to tell him everything, but his throat has swollen even more, despite the cold pack that was placed on it, and he can’t even speak. The most he can manage is a garbled croak. 

He can’t defend himself as everything about his experience is twisted. As he’s painted as the desperate, suicidal rape victim who just wanted it all to end. 

He’s not surprised to hear the verdict. Seventy-two hours of round the clock surveillance, in a stripped cell. He knows what that means, and he shivers despite the blanket laid over him. This is going to be hell. 

The doctor determines that his wound has closed sufficiently, and that the glue holding it won’t present a sufficient hazard to be a concern. His nails are cut almost down to the quick, so he can’t scratch himself, and the doctor checks to be sure there’s nothing hidden in his mouth. Mac thinks they should have done that a while ago, but it’s probably procedure.

Then comes the worst part. He’s marched down to the barren concrete box of a room, empty of everything but a plastic-covered mattress that there’s no way he could tear apart and use for anything else. 

He already feels cold, and he’s still in the thin hospital gown. But he won’t be for long. 

“Your reputation for creativity precedes you.” The psychologist’s eyes are cold. “This is for your own safety.”

Mac swallows back the sob in his throat. His improvising used to be something he was proud of. Now it’s going to be the reason he suffers. 

He doesn’t bother to struggle when the guard strips him. He doesn’t want to get himself labeled combative and locked into restraints as well. It’s bad enough he’s going to be left in this room with nothing, and guards watching his every move. 

He’s pushed inside, and the door is slammed and locked. The window in this one is bigger than in his cell on the block, probably so he’s never out of sight of the guard who sits down in a chair across the hall. He shivers, huddling into himself. He feels wretched. As degraded and humiliated as he did when he found out his whole cell block knew what Connors did to him. He’s been the prison whore to them ever since. Now, to these guards, he’s going to be the depressed victim who had to be watched. The thought that every time they see him, this is what they’ll think of, forces tears into the corners of his eyes. 

He sits down in a corner and shivers, pulling his legs up to his chest to give himself a bit more privacy from the eyes that won’t leave him. He doesn’t want to cry. He can’t do that in front of these people watching him. It’s the only dignity he has left. 

_ They punish me for not dying by making me wish I was dead. _ He knows that’s not exactly what’s happening, but it certainly feels like it. He’s miserable already and he’s only been in here an hour. This is going to be the worst three days of his life. 

He just wants it to be over already. But he knows that the next time someone attacks him, he could end up right back here. Because if it so much as looks like he was harming himself, no one is going to believe that an inmate with one suicide attempt on their record already is telling the truth about being attacked. He learned the hard way that no one here listens. Everyone already thinks they know him. 

They look at him and they see someone with every reason to give up. He’s here for life, he’s already been assaulted and people have tried to kill him multiple times. No one believes someone in his position will want to keep going.

He doesn’t even know why he hasn’t given up. Maybe because he doesn’t deserve the easy way out. The first tears slip down his cheeks as he crumbles further into himself. He took a father away from a family. They showed him photos of the kids he left grieving, the woman he widowed. He deserves to spend the life in here they expect him to.

He gulps back the sob.  _ If they see you look this broken they’ll think you  _ are _ suicidal and you’ll be in here even longer. _ Not that he deserves better, but...he doesn’t want to be in here anymore, exposed and scrutinized and judged. He just wants to get out of here...and go back to being attacked and assaulted and dehumanized?

Nothing is a good option. He can’t help the tears dripping off his chin or the sobs shaking his shoulders. The rest of his life, however long it’s going to be, at this rate, is going to be one kind of hell or another. 

But maybe he has some choice in what kind it’s going to be. Once he gets out of here, those men will be waiting for him. But so will Connors. 

As much as the thought turns Mac’s stomach, he knows what he has to do if he wants to live. And after today, he’s not sure he feels as badly about it as he did a few hours ago. He’s already broken. He’s already been degraded and humiliated until he doesn’t feel human. What’s a little more? 


End file.
